things which are making me angry this week

so our future prime minister, mr brown has said we should go ahead and replace our nuclear weapons so we can maintain our nuclear deterrent. even before this hit the news this week i had been thinking that this would be a great opportunity to make a statement to the rest of the world. britain could say that in the interests of world safety and peace they would not renew the nuclear weapons. now apart from gaining the trust of countries like Iran, britain would also be keeping up their side of the nuclear non-proliferation pact. and what would britain lose. well the deterrent but who exactly are we trying to deter, post cold war. this is 25 billion pounds worth of weapon that we will never and can never use.

firstly the (perceived) threat has changed- we're not exactly going to get bin laden to stand still long enough to get him with a nuke. Secondly, can britain really justify, ethically, launching a nuclear missile that is 8 times more powerful than the one that was dropped on hiroshima? even if one hit us could we really inflict that sort of civilian damage on anyone else.

yet if it was just left as it was i think the renewal would be rubber stamped in no time. there looks like there coud be a debate in parliament which is a start. other than that i think CND's membership might begin to swell.

to me a few less nuclear weapons and £25 billion spent on something that saves lives rather than ending them would make britain a much better place.